Breaking Down SharePoint Migration Process Steps

Do you want to ensure your corporate documents are safe and accessible simultaneously? Then you need the right technology to ensure this happens. That is why more and more companies migrate their documents to SharePoint Online. Microsoft’s enterprise-level security and cloud access ensures that registered users can access and share their files on any device.

The podcast episode shares how the SharePoint Migration Process works. Also, check out our on-demand webinar to learn more about the Benefits and Strategies for SharePoint Migration.

Table of Contents

5 SharePoint Migration Process Steps

When we talk about the SharePoint migration process, here are 5 steps that take you from an on-prem to an online SharePoint Document Management System.

Step 1: discovery

As the name suggests, with the discovery, you start by evaluating your current on-premise server. For example, “We have 100,000 documents stored on our site.” The question becomes how many of these documents are PDFs. How many of these documents are word docs? How many are JPEGs or images?

It’s important to understand this breakdown, research that information, and see how much space you’re using on your current server. Discovery gives you a baseline of what and how much data you need to transfer.

Step 2: Assessment

Now you can assess what your needs are. Again, maybe you have 100,000 documents, but maybe 10,000 haven’t been opened in three years or more. Do you still need old files? With that line of thinking, how long do you need to keep documents in your organization?

For example, you must keep financial documents secure for seven years because that’s how long the IRS can go back to audit. So by looking at this information, you have to assess your specific needs and which documents you should migrate ahead of time.

Step 3: Pilot

Once you’ve assessed your documents, you could start creating a pilot. Instead of just moving everything over at once, you want to test that things work correctly first. You may have a few department members test how the process will work. Instead of sending 100,000 or 90,000 documents, you send 1000 documents over and test whether it works in that small, limited pilot.

Since documents and data are the lifeblood of your organization, you want to reduce interruptions. A pilot migration can help with this objective.

Step 4: Execution

The SharePoint migration doesn’t start until you get to the execution stage when you send over your documents. Remember the first three steps focus on the functional migration part of this process.

The fourth step we’re talking about for execution handles the content side. You can automate this process using the right software and tools when you perform steps 1-3.

You can find a demo of the SharePoint migration process in the on-demand webinar we mentioned previously.

Step 5: Onboarding

Once you finish the execution stage, remember you still need to finish the onboarding because your staff needs to know how to use your new SharePoint online site correctly to ensure it fits in with your processes and systems.